A Rather Nice Color
by plungers-rock-my-socks
Summary: Sirius and James are bored and decide to try out a spell they just found. All the Gryffindors know not to trust James or Sirius when they are bored, but they just can't get out of it. What happens to them at the hands of bored Maruaders? Read to find out!


A/N: Marauder era fic featuring James and Sirius.

Disclaimer: Not mine. All J.K. Rowling's.

Everyone in the Gryffindor common room was enjoying this unusual day. For one, they had an assembly today, leaving no time for teachers to assign homework. More importantly though was the fact that they had gone all day without hearing one mention of llamas, plungers, six-foot-tall-edible-marbles, or any other similar thing born from the insane depths of Sirius's mind. Unfortunately, this probably meant something big was about to happen, but they would deal with that later.

After about ten minutes of uninterrupted leisurely bliss, the portrait hole started to open and everyone looked up hoping it was not Sirius or James. Of course, they were not this lucky, because they obviously were not the lucky kind of people. Lucky people sit at home using whatever rare, expensive item they bought with their lottery winnings. Lucky people do not have to spend time feeding flobberworms and lucky people are never the source of amusement for bored Marauders.

So, being the unlucky sort of people that they were, in walked Sirius Black and James Potter carrying a book. Now to anyone inexperienced in dealing with Marauders, a mere book might not seem like cause for alarm. However, the Gryffindor students were highly experienced in this matter, and knew that an end had come to their rare peace. No one had yet forgotten the other times James or Sirius had checked out books. One book, entitled _Make the Most of Your Food_ was not only the source of the idea for the six-foot-edible-marbles, but it also spawned the idea of making rice larger so it would be easier to pick up with chopsticks. However, in his excitement, Sirius accidentally caused the rice to multiply instead of enlarge. Given that rice multiplies at a much faster rate than any other substance known to mankind, within two minutes the entire common room and all the dormitories were filled with rice. No one could get to the doorway so the few who were lucky enough to have brooms simply flew away and those who were not had to hang on to the roof.

The book that James was holding at the present was not about food. In fact, it was titled _Spells for the Brave, the Bored, and the Batty_ and it sounded like just the type of book James and Sirius would like. They were certainly brave; you would have to be to swap all of Snape's potion and dark arts books with books involving personal hygiene. They had the 'bored' part down as well, no one knew anyone who got bored more often than Sirius. As for the 'batty' part, Sirius got detention last year for trying to eat people after he put pizza sauce and toppings on them.

People started migrating towards the portrait hole as fast as possible before they could be forced to endure whatever the Marauders had thought up. Upon reaching it, they discovered that Sirius or James, or maybe Remus if he done it from the outside, had jammed the portrait hole. Now in addition to needing a password to get into the common room you also needed one to get out. Unlike the normal password, this one was not made up by the Fat Lady or any other sane person, this one was made by a Marauder. Guessing was not likely to work because the password could be anything from bananas or llamas to qwerty or asfagen. James and Sirius just laughed knowing that they would have a full audience on which to try knew spells. People were not sure if they should run up the dorms to get out of the way or, remembering the rice, stay where were because there might be a chance of breaking down the door to escape.

James picked up his wand, muttered something and a blinding purple light flashed. Everyone looked around a bit because this was not the usual type of spell James would do. Then they noticed the bubbles. Still, what harm is there in bubbles? If they were merely normal bubbles as they appeared then everyone could come out from under the tables and chairs where they had hidden. At this point, most people would have come out, but years of the Marauder's tricks had bred in them a survival instinct that told them to stay where they were. Nothing happened for about five minutes so people started emerging from their various hiding places. Once everyone was more or less out, James and Sirius directed the bubbles to attack the others.

Now I know what you are thinking. You are thinking 'they are just bubbles. Bubbles have hit everyone. There are bubbles in our soap and shampoo. Maybe if you were hitting Snape with bubbles it would be funny because it is probably the only bath he will ever have, but it's just not funny to hit regular people with bubbles.' Well, if they were just regular bubbles, then you would be perfectly justified in your opinion. However, they are not regular bubbles. Whatever these bubbles touch, they turn it purple, this includes people. When I say purple, I do not mean the royalty kind of purple, I mean three-year-old-girl-neon- purple.

Picture this if you will. You are a young seventh-year man. You consider yourself good-looking until those idiot marauders turned you hair and skin neon-little-girl-purple. While you were running around screaming, trying to get the color off, the two responsible for your new color vanish. You would be pretty mad. Especially when it does not wash off. Even more so when you hear James and Sirius laughing but cannot find them because you are not aware of James's invisibility cloak. You and all the Gryffindors agree that Dumbledore should be able to remove the spell so you run to the portrait hole and see a piece of paper you missed before. It says, "The password is mallkin. Pronounced ma-ya-kin."

The Hufflepuffs, Slytherins, and Ravenclaws are all sitting down eating breakfast when a herd of neon-purple Gryffindor students come running in trying to get the Headmaster to remove the bloody spell that turned you purple. None of the other houses are as experienced in the field of the Marauders pranks as the Gryffindors were, even so, anyone could tell this was done by either James or Sirius with the possible help from Peter and Remus.

When Gryffindors reached the front of the room, they were thoroughly embarrassed and not to mention out of breath because they ran all the way from Gryffindor tower. They asked Dumbledore if he would remove the spell, but he replied "Sorry, this spell cannot be removed; however, it will fade away in two weeks. In the mean time, purple is a rather nice color, isn't it?"

A/N: Leave me reviews. Please. Or I will have James come turn you purple.


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